PBA Blasts Hospital's 9/11 Health Monitoring

By SUSAN EDELMAN and CARL CAMPANILE

The nation's largest police union plans to launch
its own medical registry to track cancers and other life-threatening
diseases hitting 9/11 responders, saying the federally funded World
Trade Center medical monitoring program has kept them in the dark.

"We need to find out what cancers and serious disorders are
out there so we know what to look for," said Patrick Lynch,
president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. "Millions
of dollars are being spent, and we're getting no information."

The PBA will soon post an online registry for cops who helped in
the 9/11 rescue and recovery to record their cancers, heart attacks,
kidney failure and other illnesses, Lynch said.

"We have deaths now. We can't wait for information that can
save other lives," he said.

The PBA's registry aims to include ill responders like Joseph Wittleder,
44, an NYPD emergency-service detective who rushed to Ground Zero
on 9/11 and spent 12 to 14 hours a day for the next five weeks digging
in the toxic rubble.

The father of two toddlers, a nonsmoker, was diagnosed with kidney
failure in 2002. A transplant with a kidney from his wife, Michele,
was postponed this year when he came down with a severe lung disease.

He can't sleep lying down because of breathing difficulty and coughs
up "bags of blood," his wife said.

"It's unbelievable that no one wants to acknowledge that guys
are getting this sick from 9/11," she said.

Wittleder is set to get his first screening in the WTC program
- which is led by Mount Sinai Hospital - next week and join the
nearly 16,000 responders who have already done so, including 5,800
checked twice.

One sick responder told The Post he tried unsuccessfully to log
his cancer with the program.

NYPD narcotics Detective John Walcott, 41, was diagnosed with acute
leukemia in 2003 - two months after the WTC program gave him a clean
bill of health, he said. When he called the program to report it,
he said, the people who answered the phone repeatedly told him,
"We're not keeping any stats on that."

Dr. Robin Herbert, incoming chief investigator and coordinator
of the WTC monitoring, said the staff is instructed to record such
updates. But the program - which has gotten $68 million in federal
funds - lacks data on cancers and other serious diseases, Herbert
acknowledged. When a comprehensive health exam finds possible problems,
like a growth, patients are referred to outside doctors for further
tests.

The program asks patients to report back on their final diagnoses
- but not all do, Herbert said. "I know we don't get all the
information," she said.

David Worby, a lawyer for 8,000 cops, firefighters and others in
a class-action suit against the city, said cancer has struck 300,
including 35 who died. Worby said the data is available to authorities,
but so far none has asked for it.

Meanwhile, some responders never signed up for a screening, including
Brooklyn NYPD Detective John Marshall, 46, who worked at Ground
Zero three months and retired in 2002. The burly, 6-foot-6 smoker
suffered a massive heart attack in 2003 and was recently diagnosed
with throat and lymph-node cancer.

His wife, Debbie, called the city's WTC Health Registry, but said
the interviewer merely told her a new questionnaire would be sent
out.